By: Elijah Pinckney, Staff Writer 

This upcoming spring will be the third season of Morehouse College lacrosse following Covid-19, hopefully to be followed by more to come. 

In early 2021, Sebastian Gordon, a now-graduating senior, helped relaunch the lacrosse team into its first season after the pandemic settled. Gordon re-engaged the program by organizing practices, recruiting players, finding a coach, and more.  

The team started during the 2010-2011 academic year when the club began bringing attention to lacrosse on campus. Then Covid-19 slowed the program’s progress. 

After playing eight games throughout the 2022 season against Howard, Mississippi State, Western Carolina, Georgia State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Stanford, University of Kentucky and High Point’s club teams, the team’s season concluded. 

Though the season was short, it can be seen as successful after Covid swept the country by storm in the previous year. 

During the offseason, Gordon searched Morehouse’s campus for more players and volunteers interested in playing for the college. Now, the Morehouse Lacrosse Team has 23 players and is a registered organization under the college. 

To recruit players, the team set up a table during Hump Wednesday’s Registered Student Organization fair and gained the attention of potential players through the program’s Instagram account. 

“We’re still building the program, we just want people that want to play,” Gordon said. “I’m not looking for people that have a whole lot of experience, a lot of people that have been playing their whole life or have a whole lot of skill.” 

Gordon believes there is evident talent embedded in the sports club. He claims that though they are mixed with new and experienced players, he has no doubt that there is plenty of talent on the team. 

To enhance the quality of the team, Gordon got in contact with his lacrosse coach from home, Coach Ryan Jones in Washington, D.C., to help develop the program. 

Because of his love for the game, Jones has made a commitment to travel between D.C. and Atlanta to help Morehouse’s players make lacrosse a permanent addition to the institution’s athletic sector. He also coaches Howard University’s men’s lacrosse team, other youth players in the DMV area, and contributed to starting Bowie State University’s lacrosse program. 

Jones has known Gordon and Kasai Rogers, another senior on the team, since they were six years old, making it an obvious choice for Gordon to ask Jones for assistance with the team. 

Jones sees that the team does not yet have the support system to thrive as a program, causing him to reach out within the Metro Atlanta community and Morehouse’s alumni network. 

The players have a goal of getting Morehouse to have a fully funded NCAA program. Though this is the goal, monetary issues and finding resources have been the common theme that the team has often run into since its inception. 

Without a field of their own, the players must find locations on campus that are vacated to be able to practice. Without the proper financial support, it is hard for the program to stay afloat and attract more players. 

“We had to wear Walmart pennies as jerseys and carpool to games to make sure we had a season,” Gordon said. “Even now, not everybody on campus knows that we have a lacrosse team and there are a lot of lacrosse players on campus that I find every week.” 

Jones has recently connected Morehouse’s team to the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University and Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) for potential relationships to grow the program. 

“We had nothing a year ago, and now we have all this momentum,” Jones said. 

Edited by: Kobe Scales, Sports Editor